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WTCC Sonoma: Alain Menu takes last-gasp pole for Chevrolet

Alain Menu produced a finely-judged last lap effort to claim his second World Touring Car Championship pole of the season at Sonoma on Saturday

The Swiss racer started his final qualifying lap in third place, but found over 0.3s on his previous best to take pole in his Chevrolet with a time of 1m45.236s.

"I was not too happy with my lap in Q1, and we changed the car a tiny bit," said Menu, who was only fourth after the first qualifying session.

"My first lap in Q2 was fastest but then the team radioed me on the in-lap to say [Gabriele] Tarquini had improved. My second lap in Q2 was really clean, and perhaps that was the key to this circuit, which has so many blind crests and dust."

Menu's improvement demoted Tarquini to second, and the Italian lost any chance of recovering his position when he ran off-track on his final lap.

"I destroyed my tyres on my warm-up lap," said the Lukoil SEAT driver. "Watching the results from testing I thought perhaps this was a track for young drivers, but now in qualifying I think experience counts!"

Championship leader Yvan Muller was fastest in Q1, but could only manage third in the decisive second session. The Chevrolet driver admitted to underperforming in the second and third sectors.

Trailing Muller by 17 points in the drivers' standings, the third factory Cruze of Rob Huff took fourth.

Hungaroring reversed-grid winner Norbert Michelisz was the top BMW runner in fifth for Zengo Motorsport. He also claimed pole in the independents' class.

Alex MacDowall, who was fastest in the Friday test, claimed a solid sixth ahead of the SUNRED SEAT of Tiago Monteiro. Stefano D'Aste will start the reversed-grid second race from pole.

Tarquini's Lukoil team-mate Aleksei Dudukalo brought out the red flags in Q1 when he beached the front wheels of his Leon in a gulley at Turn 2. As a result of the incident, Dudukalo was unable to take his place in Q2.

Regular 2012 frontrunner Tom Coronel had a day to forget, spinning off at Turn 2 and qualifying in the penultimate position.

Race one grid:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car             Time       Gap
 1.  Alain Menu            Chevrolet            1m45.232s
 2.  Gabriele Tarquini     Lukoil SEAT          1m45.468s  + 0.236s
 3.  Yvan Muller           Chevrolet            1m45.539s  + 0.307s
 4.  Rob Huff              Chevrolet            1m45.572s  + 0.340s
 5.  Norbert Michelisz     Zengo BMW            1m46.558s  + 1.326s
 6.  Alex MacDowall        Bamboo Chevrolet     1m46.578s  + 1.346s
 7.  Tiago Monteiro        SUNRED SEAT          1m46.594s  + 1.362s
 8.  Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW         1m46.761s  + 1.529s
 9.  Mehdi Bennani         Proteam BMW          1m47.004s  + 1.772s
10.  Stefano D'Aste        Wiechers BMW         1m47.263s  + 2.031s
11.  Alberto Cerqui        ROAL BMW             1m47.851s  + 2.619s
12.  Aleksei Dudukalo      Lukoil SEAT          No time
13.  James Nash            Arena Ford           1m47.000s  Q1
14.  Charles Ng            Engstler BMW         1m47.050s  Q1
15.  Fernando Monje        SUNRED SEAT          1m47.149s  Q1
16.  Darryl O'Young        Special Tuning SEAT  1m47.167s  Q1
17.  Tom Chilton           Arena Ford           1m47.380s  Q1
18.  Pepe Oriola           Tuenti SEAT          1m47.434s  Q1
19.  Tom Boardman          Special Tuning SEAT  1m47.436s  Q1
20.  Tom Coronel           ROAL BMW             1m47.546s  Q1
21.  Robb Holland          Bamboo Chevrolet     1m48.179s  Q1

Race two grid:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car
 1.  Stefano D'Aste        Wiechers BMW
 2.  Mehdi Bennani         Proteam BMW
 3.  Franz Engstler        Engstler BMW
 4.  Tiago Monteiro        SUNRED SEAT
 5.  Alex MacDowall        Bamboo Chevrolet
 6.  Norbert Michelisz     Zengo BMW
 7.  Rob Huff              Chevrolet   
 8.  Yvan Muller           Chevrolet   
 9.  Gabriele Tarquini     Lukoil SEAT   
10.  Alain Menu            Chevrolet 
11.  Alberto Cerqui        ROAL BMW
12.  Aleksei Dudukalo      Lukoil SEAT
13.  James Nash            Arena Ford  
14.  Charles Ng            Engstler BMW
15.  Fernando Monje        SUNRED SEAT      
16.  Darryl O'Young        Special Tuning SEAT  
17.  Tom Chilton           Arena Ford    
18.  Pepe Oriola           Tuenti SEAT 
19.  Tom Boardman          Special Tuning SEAT 
20.  Tom Coronel           ROAL BMW
21.  Robb Holland          Bamboo Chevrolet 

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